ElevationLeg 1: 2001, North America

'To Helsinki'

19 August 2010

'To Helsinki'

Travel Day. Nice - Helsinki.

Yet again I had the experience of waking up with little or no idea of where I was, not to mention feeling like death on a stick. It all came flooding back to me soon enough - drank too much, passed out, stayed the night - and I staggered up with the deeply unpleasant realisation of all the things I had to get done today before leaving for Helsinki. The concept of killing myself floated through my head, but in the end I just had to bite the bullet and get on with it.

Chore number one was laundry, as I'll be travelling for a while now and so opportunities to do this will become scarcer. I got myself back to the hotel, scraped up the garments in question and headed to the laundromat. The small, steaming hot, airless laundromat. It was torture but, let€™s face it, self-inflicted.

After this came packing, checking out and moving on. We flew to Finland this evening to allow the band time to soundcheck tomorrow. I also took the opportunity of having the stage system in the dark, so headed straight to the stadium upon our arrival at Helsinki airport.

There were just a few of us there at the dark, empty stadium. Just enough people to keep the lighting and video systems active, one camera and the screen motion control. We worked on some new elements for City of Blinding Lights, With or Without You and the lighting for camera in Miss Sarajevo, with which I am deeply pleased.

This only took about an hour, so we were pleased to find some of our chums still up in the bar when we got back to the Hotel Fabulous. A few drinks to unwind then I headed to bed around 3am.

A friend of mine posted that Michael Been has died at 60, whilst at a festival in Belgium, working with BRMC. Details are sketchy but it seems to be the case, which is tragic news indeed.